KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia -- They lost, but they won. That might sound strange, but it's true. The three pioneering U.S. women ski jumpers who did not win a medal Tuesday night in the inaugural Olympic women's ski jumping competition achieved victory the moment they arrived in Sochi.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, was not a fan of having women in the Olympics, but if he had met the 30 athletes competing at RusSki Gorki Ski Jumping Center, he would have made an exception for them. In fact, he might have let them into the Games earlier than his successors, the mean-spirited leaders of the International Olympic Committee who made the women wait an extra four years, just because.

De Coubertin is the man who uttered the famous saying, "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well."

If the good Baron hadn't died 76 years ago, he would have gotten a kick out of 27-year-old veteran Jessica Jerome, who led the Americans with a 10th place finish.

"It was fun," Jerome said. "It was a lot of fun. I didn't perform to my best ability but I'm still happy, strangely. I think everyone is. I think all the girls from all the countries are smiling. There's a special camaraderie all the girls have, from all the countries, and I really felt it tonight. We were up there high-fiving with the Finns, the Canadians….

"I don't want to seem complacent. I know if I had done what I was doing a week and a half ago, I would be up there on the medals. It just didn't happen for me today. But just being here to share this with all my friends and competitors is a really awesome consolation prize."

This refreshing sense of perspective has its roots in the long battle Jerome and a few others fought to make this night possible. She and teammate Lindsey Van were the Johnny Appleseeds of their sport, suing the organizing committee of the previous Olympic Games in Vancouver (with a couple of their Canadian competitors) for the right to participate in those Games, then waiting not-so-patiently for another four years until that opportunity, finally, undeniably, came.

They were joined by the reigning 19-year-old world champion Sarah Hendrickson, who hurried back from a devastating knee injury to be here on this historic night. Van finished 15th and Hendrickson, by no means back to her old self, was 21st.

It sounds like a cliche to say this night was about more than placements and medals -- like something from another era, almost make believe — but for these women, it truly was.

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"We've already won," Deedee Corradini, the president of Women's Ski Jumping-USA and the former mayor of Salt Lake City, said two hours before the competition began with Hendrickson's first jump. "Every single one of the women's ski jumpers, they've already won. ... Our battle to get the women into ski jumping became much more than ski jumping. It really became a women's rights issue and a human rights issue because we were really fighting for all women in all sports and hopefully all aspects of life."

They all felt this way. The journey had been way too challenging to not see the bigger picture.

"As an athlete, I wanted a medal," Hendrickson said. "As an athlete, you want more, but I'm proud to be here and proud to be in this first one."

Van, 29, a former world champion, has been the face of the ski jumpers' cause. So when the evening was over, she looked back on the event with a sense of supreme satisfaction.

"It was a great experience, the best experience ever," she said. "I'm here. That's all I really care about. We can call ourselves Olympians now. I didn't think I would see this day. I'm happy I stuck around."